Hurley, Ch. 3: Middle Class Environmentalism

Hurley, Ch. 3: Middle Class Environmentalism • ISS 310 • Spring 2002 • Prof. Alan Rudy • 3-26-02

Ch.3: Middle Class Env’talism • “Environmental activism emerged out of the effort to protect those physical features of residential life – fresh air, pastoral landscapes, open space – that had become central components of middle-class identity…. The emergence of a middle-class environmental protection ethic flowed from the growth of a consumer-oriented white-collar contingent.” (47-8)

Ch.3: Middle Class Env’talism II • “Because white collar employees, in contrast to independent proprietors, did not fully control their work situations, they channeled surplus income toward purchases and activities that improved the quality of life away from work, in new suburban communities.” (50) • NOTE: What is Hurley’s point here? Who is the implicit comparison with? Who is not in the picture? Do you agree? What information do you have to support it or reject it?

Ch.3: Middle Class Env’talism IV • Suburbs  Env’tal Safety “residents demanded more aggressive action from local authorities….” • Many early environmentalists were women who, as “recognized (accepted and expected) guardians of domestic welfare, accepted primary responsibility for the maintenance of suburban communities….” • For many, environmental reform provided a viable alternative to domestic confinement.” (56) • Remember the role of The League of Women Voters!

Ch.3: Middle Class Env’talism V • “middle-class women advanced their cause through civic groups and community organizations.” • Note the centrality of women in the production of middle class political issues, as well as in the reproduction of home life!!!(57-60)

Ch.3: Middle Class Env’talism VI • Political accommodation and democratic optimism generated a pretty useless smoke abatement law, esp. given industrial expansion during the subsequent period (61-64) (>development trumps <pollution) • Protection of the Miller shoreline, among other lake-proximate areas, generated a more defiant and parochial environmental politics within the middle-class – protect environmental amenities & keep out encroaching African-Americans! (64-65)

Ch.3: Middle Class Env’talism VII • Community Action to Reverse Pollution (CARP) and NEPA’s Environmental Impact Statements  democraticization in order to DEFEND/MAINTAIN the Dunes’ “unique ecological formations for recreation, aesthetic appreciation, and scientific study.” • NOT USE – but preservation and study

Ch.3: Middle Class Env’talism VIII • There’s more on environmentalism, and wilderness/nature preservation, as a means of maintaining residential homogeneity along class and race lines and recreational exclusivity. (71-73) • NOTE: What do you make of Hurley’s argument that middle class environmentalism assumes and accepts that changing production is off limits to environmental politics? – that all that can be done is the defense of environmental amenities in the name of domestic consumption and social status?

Ch.3: Middle Class Env’talism IX • Industrial resistance (env’talism hurts economic development), rather than deterring the middle-class eco-reformers, led env’talists to question their commitment to growth. (74) • For them this is safe because the one-step-removed character of the middle class from production limited the effect that an economic downturn would have on the middle class.

Anti-growth movements, race and production • NOTE: What do you make of Hurley’s description of the social roots of anti-growth and its connection to the “separation” of the middle-class from minorities & real production?

Conditions of Production • James O’Connor (1989): Natural Causes. NY: Guilford Press. • Sees three crisis tendencies. • Overproduction Crisis • Fiscal Crisis • Environmental Crises • Ecological • Personal • Communal

Conditions of Production II • Overproduction crisis – too much stuff, too few markets – common to economic cycles. • Fiscal crisis – economic downturn  • business needs more public R&D, new efficient infrastructures, and to pay fewer taxes, BUT • people need more support and protection and to pay lower taxes… • BUT the state has fewer resources: what to do? • serve business  irk people? 1920s, 50s, 80s, 90s? • serve people  irk business? 1930s, 60s • serve both  deficit spending/debt? 1950s, 70s

Conditions of Production III • Nature, people and communities are not (re)produced like commodities. • Nature is made by non-social means. • People reproduce for cultural and affectual reasons. • Communities are produced and maintained by people and governments. • Business can treat nature, workers and communities as if they are disposable or depreciable – as if they were commodities

Conditions of Production IV • Pollution, exhaustion, and intensive use degrade the health of nature, people, & communities. • The problem, for business is that depleted ecologies, unhealthy people, & degraded communities are less productive than their rich, healthy, and vibrant counterparts. • Also, depletion, sickness, inequality and degradation are sources of social movements that often resist business interests.

Conditions of Production V • Since environmental, labor/gender/etc., and community-based social movements generally make demands on the state for regulatory programs and enforcement… • the state is always a key player in the relationship between nature and business, labor and business, and communities and business. • The key is that the real conditions of life, the politics of those conditions and the kinds of uses and production society generates are all key.

What we see in Hurley’s book, then, is: • a combination of • economic and industrial development, • struggles around politics, race and civil rights in the workplace and in the community, • efforts of different groups to renegotiate their relationship with their environment through different appeals to the government. • Of further note is the different role of women in each of these movements and the way womens’ changing position in society changes their position in (environmental and community) politics

Hurley, Ch. 3: Middle Class Environmentalism